Un café per favore

Italians make the best coffee in the world, no discussion about that. I wonder why the French can’t make as good coffee having the same machines, the same coffee and about the same kind of water. There can’t be any other reason that the French just prefer bad coffee. When the allies in 1944 invaded Normandy and later freed the country, there was a high price to pay. The Americans left behind their preference for bad coffee.

On our summer vacation when leaving Italy and heading towards our summer paradise in Grasse, we stop at every single highway café in Italy just to take the last double espresso. There will be no need to drink coffee in France the rest of the holiday. In addition after having in one day 62 double espressos we won’t sleep for the next 14 days and this allows us to have 40 % more holidays to enjoy.

My husband is the coffee expert in our family. He studies with great interest how long time it takes a little bag of sugar to disappear from the surface and gives notes to every single coffee he drinks. For his birthday a year ago I gave him a homemade present card for a very nice espresso machine, together with his whole family. I hadn’t bought it yet, and after the party headed to the shop with this very considerable amount of money on my account. On the way to the coffee shop I got caught by a shoe sale, and came accidentally to spend over half of the money. Shit.

I resolutely decided to save up to make it up again, but then I had to go to Paris because of my work. In Paris I saw a Lancaster handbag that I just had to own. For a second I thought about paying for it with my company credit card but then I remembered how my boss, as always before I have to travel on business, had the little talk with me about what the company credit card is for. This time she seemed to be serious, she was waving a document in front of me where I could just see the words “Fired due to misuse of company credit card”.

So no, I didn’t want to risk that. My plan B, to become a politician when I get fired is out of question after there was a scandal with our Finance Minister’s taxi driving. I have no business in Danish politics after my pile of unexplained taxi receipts, paid with my company credit card. Even I would make perfect politician; I love spending other people’s money and I am very corrupt.

So how could I pay for my Lancaster bag with the company credit card ? How about if I say that I invited the charming Mr Jonathan for afternoon tea (my boss would understand if I showed her the picture I took with my mobile phone of this incredibly handsome client) ? But then, afternoon tea for 250 euros in Café Lancaster, would she buy it ? I already had enjoyed a quite expensive lunch at restaurant Printemps and even more expensive dinner at brasserie Galeries Lafayette. No, my boss has become very suspicious lately, so I had to use my own credit card, and gone was the rest of my husband’s espresso machine.

I have made some serious thinking and calculated that I can save up the money in about 4 years. I have asked Giancarlo, a friend in south, to fabricate a letter he will send from Italy explaining that the requested model of Nuova Simonelli espresso machine will be available again autumn 2012. I hope that my husband won’t study the postal stamp on the letter too closely. Then he could be wondering why Nuova Simonelli’s head quarters are located in a little village in Puglia.